Anne Harris (1) (–2022)

I've read her other two books and I remember that they had a lovely mindfuck quality that stood out more than the quality of the writing. This one had a little less of that. The ideas were interesting but never really fully developed, nor were the characters. Several of them seemed cardboard. I was never sure if she was gently mocking her group of naive feminists or exalting them. That said, the story was engaging and I gobbled it up within two days while I was on vacation. I liked the sentiment behind the story even if the execution led me to feel a little uncomfortable. (March 10, 2005)… (plus d'informations)

I was just getting into Shula's story, when it stopped, and we're taken to Wendy, a socially inept and lonely young girl. I found the writing at times to be excellent, and the prose to be very good, especially for the type of book this seems to be presented as.

But once into the first few chapters of Wendy's story, I saw through the facade of the story to what this truly is - the only slightly disguised naive sexual fantasy of an emerging wannabe goth.

Apologies to the author, but a lot of that playground stuff and expereinces of the early Wendy just have to be autobiographical.

Fantasies - sexual or otherwise - of 13-year olds are ALWAYS going to be about how they are completely alone in the world and always will be, and are very important to the person going through them. But to the rest of us, they are naive (that word again) tawdry and run-of-the-mill - a bit embarrassing really.

Aside from my total disinterest in Wendy (I read a single chapter of her after her 'emergence', and this just solidified my ideas about the wannabe goth bit), it all made me feel that I could see just how the rest of the book would work out, and so I dropped it on page 133.

Maybe I'm wrong, but only the most empassioned explanation of why i am wrong would sway me from ever picking it up again.

However, I may read another of Harris' books. Harris' prose style and some description really is very good, so if she avoids the infantile stories and the fan-fiction subjects of an ostracised teen, she could do good things.… (plus d'informations)

When I first encountered Anne Harris' Accidental Creatures I was completely oblivious to to the fact that I had met the author before, albeit briefly. I came across the book while browsing through the lists of the Spectrum Award winners and nominees. (Accidental Creatures won in 1999, the first year the award was given, tying with Dark Water's Embrace by Stephen Leigh.) The title intrigued me, the cover mesmerized me, and on top of that, I found out that Harris was more or less a local author. That's when I began to wonder and eventually realized that Harris is a frequent participant on the Kerrytown BookFest's SF panel. This is usually a great panel that I enjoy immensely, and I'm more than happy to support the authors that participate.

Accidental Creatures begins with two separate stories (those of Chango and Helix) that quickly become intertwined as the book progresses, taking place with a convincing near-future Detroit as a backdrop. The auto companies have collapsed and the bio-textile industry has risen to take their place. GeneSys is the industry's preeminent corporation, but it has been frequently troubled by the threats and demands of its workforce. The vatdivers, who harvest the biopolymers, are just as often thwarted in their attempts to organize. Diving is dangerous work--constant exposure to the biopolymers' growth medium causes genetic mutations and in the end leads to an early death.

Chango is a sport--a daughter of first-generation vatdivers, she is fortunate that her mutation isn't life-threatening. She takes up thieving to support herself when her older sister Ada, a community leader in the struggle for workers' rights, dies under questionable circumstances. Helix has always been different, with four arms and fangs she stand out even among the sports. As the daughter of Dr. Hector Martin, a prominent research scientist at GeneSys working on a highly classified project, she has led a secluded life. By chance the two women meet, precipitating Chango's discovery of the truth surrounding her sister's death and Helix's discovery of the truth about herself.

Accidental Creatures has an interesting mix of elements; while it can be firmly categorized as science fiction (with a strong flavor of cyberpunk), Harris also incorporates some fantasy, mysticism, intrigue, and mystery. Her characters are queer in many ways--physically, sexually, mentally, emotionally--but readers aren't bashed over the head with any of it. The book is much more subtle than that. I was pleased that sexuality was included in such a way that it added to the story instead of detracting from it. In addition to strong characters, the envisioning of the future Motor City and social conditions was particularly well done.

Unfortunately, Accidental Creatures has gone out of print, making nice copies a little harder to find. While not outstanding, it was a satisfying read and enjoyable enough to be worth the extra effort needed to track down a copy. The plot and characters did seem a bit uneven at times, but it was a fun and interesting book regardless. As action-packed as the story was, I also found it to be rather thought-provoking (as all good speculative fiction should be), especially in regards to genetic engineering, socioeconomic class, responsibility, and individuality. No definite answers are given, but the questions raised are important. I'll have to make sure to my copy of the book signed the next time I get a chance to see Harris again.

Experiments in Reading… (plus d'informations)